Posted on 09/24/2003 5:36:21 AM PDT by calvin sun
Board adds referenda against golf course to ballot
The measures aim to kill a plan to build a complex on a Chesco farm. Some say the wording is broad.
Inquirer Staff Writer
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Voter referenda aimed at killing a Coatesville plan to create a golf course on farmland seized outside the city limits were officially placed on the Nov. 4 ballot yesterday by the Chester County Board of Elections.
A city official, meanwhile, now says that wording in one of the three ballot measures is so broad that, if approved, it could prevent Coatesville from continuing police, fire, trash and many other municipal services.
"On Nov. 5, according to this referendum, we can't provide this service," City Manager Paul G. Janssen Jr. said of the city's fire department after the elections board voted 3-0 to approve wording of the referendums.
Board members, including two county commissioners, acknowledged that the referendum could be problematic for the city, but said their job was not to judge its effect.
"It may be something that has to be resolved in court," Karen L. Martynick, a commissioner and board member, said.
That would be par for the course. The golf club plan has been the subject of legal action and political fighting in Coatesville since the city council decided to condemn part of Dick Saha's 48-acre Valley Township farm for the purpose in 1999.
The golf course is the centerpiece of a recreation complex that is part of a broad revitalization plan. City officials hope the complex will generate revenue, and bring more people into Coatesville.
Janssen would not say whether the city will mount another legal challenge, but Saha said he expected it. "The chance is they will go in and try to get an injunction," he said.
The referenda are the result of petitions circulated among city voters this year by residents opposed to the golf course and recreation center plan.
The city challenged signatures on the petitions, but Chester County Court Judge James P. MacElree ruled last month that there were enough valid signatures to qualify the measures. Two of the referenda seek changes to the city charter to require voter approval of a golf facility outside the municipal boundary, or condemnation of real estate not in the city.
The third also requires voter approval of any city-operated "proprietary or business enterprise" that would compete against a similar privately-owned enterprise.
City Solicitor John S. Carnes Jr. argued in papers filed with the election board that while this measure is aimed at the golf course, it also "will preclude the city from having the legal ability to provide any services that are available or could be available from a privately owned business," including trash collection, police and fire services, code enforcement, and other city services that can be hired out to the private sector.
Andrew Lehr, attorney for the organizers of the petition drive, said the measure is not as broad as city officials insist, but was "a matter of interpretation" that should be "left to a later, proper forum."
The board delayed until Sept. 30 a decision on wording for "plain-English" explanations of the referendums, which are required to be published in newspapers before election day, and posted at polling places.
County commissioners usually sit as the elections board. The panel yesterday was composed of Martynick, County Commissioners Chairman Colin Hanna, and a former commissioner, Patrick O'Donnell, who was appointed by a court to sit on the election board in place of Commissioner Andrew E. Dinniman. Dinniman, by law, is not allowed to serve on the board this year because he is a candidate for reelection.
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